Senators from six Nigerian oil-producing states on Wednesday rejected a proposed new oil law which seeks to reform the corruption-ridden oil and gas sector.
“This we totally reject,” said the spokesman for the 18 senators, Victor Ndoma-Egba.
The Petroleum Industry Bill is being debated both by parliament and at a public hearing.
Ndoma-Egba told reporters the proposed law “neither addresses the fundamental issues of the degraded environment of the region nor the participation of its people in their God-given endowments.”
“The Niger Delta region remains the poorest oil-producing region in the world and the PIB seeks to retain this unacceptable status quo,” he added.
The lawmakers urged President Umaru Yar’Adua to “immediately withdraw” the bill and give Oil Minister Rilwanu Lukman the boot for allegedly turning into a “clog in the wheel of progress” so a lasting solution to the problems of the region can be found.
Niger Delta’s main armed militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), says it is fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenues for the impoverished communities in the oil-rich region.
Speaking earlier Wednesday, Lukman denied that the proposed law was anti-Niger Delta.
“There is nothing in the bill that is anti-Niger Delta,” he told the public hearing.
“All the provisions, economic spin-offs…are geared specifically towards improving the living condition of the oil-producing community,” Lukman said.
Nigeria’s crude, the country’s main foreign exchange earner, is mostly derived from the restive region.